Cowbee

Those people are dying out, which is more to my point.

No, I am advocating for democratic control, not giving all control to one or two dudes. That's what you're putting in my mouth. For example, I'm arguing for the factory to be owned by the Workers, and managed by whoever they vote for. You're the one adding the caveat of an anti-democratic central god-planner, which is nonsense.

The rest of your comment is you continuing this nonsense, so maybe I'll break it into something simple and bite-sized for you.

Factory 1: Capitalist owner, workers have no say except to leave.

Factory 2: Workers are the Owners, elect a manager, and said manager can be deposed by the Workers at will.

Why do you think having Factory 1 is better, and why do you think I'm advocating for Factory 2 to have no democracy whatsoever? Why do you think it's impossible to have a federated network of Factory 2s, that are all democratically accountable, rather than someone at the top of all of Factory 2s and no democracy?

If you keep avoiding this question and intentionally misrepresenting my point, you just further prove that you don't actually care to discuss anything.

Unironically yes, increasingly. I know Lemmy is very leftist, and thus doesn't reflect America in general, but the more time goes on the more left each generation becomes, and Gen Z is by far the most leftist generation in America currently. Gen Alpha will have to wait and see, but for now America is more likely than ever before to vote for Bernie.

This. I've only been recently able to afford much needed dental care, and now it's too late for one of my teeth, a tooth above it broke the roots because my mouth is too crowded. Had I been able to afford it earlier, I would have a much more normal mouth.

If you agree that letting the hands of the few impact the many is a bad thing, then why are you in favor of limiting control of Production to the hands of the few, rather than the many?

Genuinely. If a government was democratically accountable, at all levels, why do you believe this is worse than Capitalist institutions that by definition are not democratically accountable?

Please, answer that question, if nothing else.

People are gaining economic power as opposed to Capitalism, the state must be of the workers to be Socialism. I'm arguing for democratic control of production, rather than allowing it to be decided by a tiny group of people with little to no accountability a la Capitalism. The checks and balances are democracy, which doesn't exist in Capitalist production.

Why don't you have a problem with the Benghal famine then, or the Irish Great Famine? Does famine only matter if tools are collectively owned, rather than privately? This is an utter non-point, and is why democracy is important to add to production.

In liberal Capitalism, there is precisely no mobility for Workers that they would not have in Socialism. In Socialism, they can actually directly impact production.

You keep attaching mysticism to Socialism, claiming it is inevitable to fail. Purely vibes.

All in all, you're incredibly wrong. I'm arguing that workers collectively and democratically control productuon, rather than working for mini-dictators. Your argument is that mini-dictators are good, and people should have less voice, then you add random strawman arguments and claim genocide must happen because you're anti-democracy, and equate democracy to genocide. It's absurd.

Many do, not all of course. Factionalism hurts everyone, at the end of the day.

I want to force people to be able to democratically control production, rather than having no say whatsoever, yes. You presumably would side with the Capitalists over the Monarchists in the French Revolution, yes? Same logic, you would want to force the powerful to give up control to a larger group of people, I just want everyone to have power.

Socialism also allows for innovation, the idea that innovation is a Capitalist notion is absurd. Capitalism only goes back 400 or so years in the mainstream, yet innovation has been happening without Capitalism for all of history, and still happened in Socialist systems, such as Worker Co-operatives, or even the Soviet Union.

I'm adversarial to people pretending Capitalists are leftists, and that the left has abandoned Socialism. I'm sorry I don't agree with historical revisionism.

Lemmy was created by a Communist. The platform itself was built on leftist principles, and as such is leftist in structure. The individual instances need not be piloted by a leftist, but that doesn't mean they aren't participating in a leftist structure along leftist principles.

The joke with purges wasn't even funny, it was incredibly weak. Of course I'm anti-purge, do you want me to make the equally weak joke that you're pro-child labor and slavery? Grow up.

My point wasn't that co-ops aren't allowed. Your point was that co-operative ownership struggles with instability, and therefore would inevitably result in starvation, which is 100% false as proven by me. Moving the goal post doesn't make you correct, it makes you wrong.

There are no leftist Capitalists, that's an oxymoron. Leftism is inherently anti-capitalist, and therefore what you likely are hinting at, Social Democracy, is a center-right ideology that is still riddled with issues. It's certainly better than American Capitalism, but it does away with none of the core issues with Capitalism, it only makes them slightly more tolerable. Socialists have been learning and adapting theory ever since Socialism was founded, it hasn't stagnated in any way.

I'm on a leftist platform created by a Communist as a direct leftist alternative to Reddit because I believe in the principles of leftist organizational structure, such as a rejection of the profit motive, collective ownership, and decentralization of control.

Why is co-operative farming inflexible to shocks and instability? Wouldn't it be more stable if the group can react democratically, rather than depend on several competing mini-dictators to not price-gouge and take advantage of instability for profit? I'm not just talking off of vibes, here, Worker Co-operatives, ie collective ownership of business, are shown to be far more resistant to economic shocks and more adaptable than Capitalist entities: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/building-and-sustaining-worker-cooperatives-in-the-us/

The USSR and Maoist China were developing countries just coming out of revolution, and both the Russian Federation and modern PRC remain developing countries. France was also highly unstable following the French Revolution, and became headed by Napolean, one of history's most famous dictators. Pretending decentralization is purely to blame, rather than instability leading to centralization, is a weak point to make.

Why do you believe that no Leftist has attempted to learn from the mistakes of previous Socialist systems? That's incredibly wrong, modern leftist discourse is oriented around how to achieve Worker Ownership in modern society, and avoid the problems that have plagued previous Socialist systems.

All in all, why are you on a leftist, decentralized site like Lemmy, if you hate Socialism so much? It's interesting to see such cognitive dissonance, if you like Capitalism, then there's Reddit.

I don't hate competition for the sake of competition. The goal of FOSS is cooperation until something becomes less than desirable, as the goal is a good product. With Capitalism, the goal is profit, and as such destabilization and competition are required. With FOSS, a new fork is only done for a better product, not for profit-seeking.

Commercial exploitation of an anti-Capitalist option does not mean the option is not anti-Capitalist. FOSS is a rejection of IP a la Capitalism, and a rejection of the profit motive.

I understand that trying to argue with sound logic is difficult for you, after all, nothing you've said has logically followed. Enough of being cheeky, though. The USSR was a specific model of Marxist-Leninist Socialism, they never reached Communism as Communism is a Stateless, Classless, moneyless society. They did many things right, like giving workers far more control, and providing free Healthcare and education. They also had many huge problems, like massive corruption at the Politburo level, and atrocities committed by government officials like the Katyn Massacre and Stalin's Purges. As such, I believe the USSR provides a wealth of information on what aspects did work, and what aspects were terrible. I do not want to recreate the USSR, nor use it as a template. I want to learn from it and create something far better.

You're confusing market competition for Capitalism. Capitalism requires competition and rejects cooperation, Socialism has both when it needs to. Capitalism cannot function without competition.

I understand that leftist theory can be hard to understand if you aren't at all familiar. I suggest reading leftist theory before trying to talk about it on social media as though you're saying something profound. It only comes off as profoundly ignorant.

It's true that people would be paid more for their labor, it's false to equate that to underproducing food. You're attaching mysticism to your claim, as though it's inevitable that starvation would happen unless you have a Capitalist brutally exploiting workers and still having starvation despite food being literally thrown away. Co-operative farming exists and has existed in stable manners for the vast majority of human existence, and this is even easier as industrialization improves.

There are no "other options" for Socialism beyond Worker Ownership of the Means of Production. That is Socialism. If you mean there are other models than Marxism-Leninism, then of course, I'm not an ML myself. I'm anti-tendency and think each country has unique circumstances that will result in different paths to worker ownership, perhaps Syndicalism, or Market Socialism, or Council Communism, etc.

Whether the corporation is owned by a single Capitalist or several, the fact that the Workers have exactly no say and the Capitalists have all of the say remains the problem.